Open Space Activities in February 2008

Can We Live Together? Explorations on cultural diversity at the Mumbai Kala Ghoda Festival, February 2008

Cultural diversity is a theme that CCDS is increasingly concerned with. How do we understand multiculturalism in a time of shifting/dissolving virtual boundaries between nations and cultures and simultaneously deepening divides based on race, religion, class and identity? Does multiculturalism really have space for everyone? Is the diversity we are suddenly celebrating in India really inclusive? How do we ensure that those on the margins and fringes are also assimilated into this multicultural world?

Open Space presents three special programmes for the Mumbai Kala Ghoda Festival, February 2008, exploring cultural diversity through music, film and dialogue.
Date: 10th Feb 08
Time: 6 – 7.30pm.
Venue: Asiatic Steps

Geet: Virodh aur Pratirodh Ke (Songs of Resistance and Protest)

Well-known Hindustani classical vocalist and fusion artiste Shubha Mudgal sings about communal harmony, peace and equality, including verses by Kabir, Faiz Ahmad Faiz, Sahir Ludhianvi, Majrooh Sultanpuri and Ibn-e-Insha, in Kala Ghoda’s closing concert
Date: 8th Feb 08
Time: 2.30- 4.00pm.
Venue: NGMA

Hum Saath Saath Hain, Kya?

Poet, writer and journalist Jerry Pinto takes a look at religious harmony and communal intolerance in Bollywood, the world's most prolific cinema. Accompanied by the release of an Open Space pamphlet titled ‘Can We Live Together?’ edited by Jerry Pinto
Date: 8th Feb 08
Time: 5-6pm.
Venue: NGMA

Mirror
Written and directed by Venkatesh Chakravarthy
Performed by Pritham K Chakravarthy

A monologue on the Feminine in Tamil Cinema, which highlights gender roles and stereotypes in the film industry, and focuses on star suicides, specifically of female actors. Followed by the screening of Our Family, a film about the trans-gendered Pritham Chakarvarthy and a family of three trans-gendered female subjects.
Date: 8th Feb 08
Time: 6 – 8pm.
Venue: NGMA

Our Family
Directed by K.P. Jayasankar and Anjali Monteiro

What does it mean to cross the line which sharply divides us on the basis of gender? Is there life beyond a hetero-normative family? Set in Tamilnadu, Our Family brings together excerpts from Nirvanam, a one-person performance by Pritham K. Chakravarthy and a family of three generations of trans-gendered female subjects. The film juxtaposes the ‘normality’ of their existence with Pritham’s dark and
powerful narrative Nirvanam (Liberation), the act of liberating oneself from the male body and transforming oneself to a female.

Discussion on Clean Development Mechanisms

Thursday, February 14, 2008, 5.30pm to 7.30pm, at Open Space
Presentation on ‘The Clean Development Mechanism’  by Prof. Aneeta Gokhale-Benninger, Executive Director, Centre for Development Studies and Activities (CDSA) Pune.

The Pune Municipal Corporation’s Development Plan includes the creation of Biodiversity Parks on designated hillsides throughout the city, green areas along the banks of the rivers and other water bodies such as streams and nallas. Can Clean Development Mechanisms (CDMs) be effectively used to conserve Pune’s biodiversity?

To be followed by a discussion

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BOOK LAUNCH

Friday, February 29, 2008, 5.30pm to 7.30pm, at Landmark bookstore, 1-B Moledina Road, Near Dorabjee's, Camp, Pune 411001
Open Space – Talking Poetry, along with Landmark, Pune invites you to a launch-cum-reading of the Generation 14 – a novel by Priya Sarukkai Chabria, co-published by by Zubaan and Penguin India.

Refreshments will be served from 5.45pm to 6.15pm.

The novel will be released by eminent city-based architect, Sir. Christopher Benninger, followed by a reading and slide presentation by Priya Sarukkai Chabria. The reading will be followed by an informal discussion.  

GENERATION 14 – a novel by Priya Sarukkai Chabria

"I am a fourteenth generation Clone and something has gone wrong with me. Not that my DNA is altered, not that I am a mutant. Not that any function need be eliminated. It's nothing obvious. It's terminal, and secret. Let me put it this way: I remember."

Set in the 24th century, the novel journeys back and forth across millennia to explore ideas of plural identity, and what it means to be human. This extraordinary novel is unlike any other coming from the subcontinent, and heralds a new generation of fantasy writing from India.

“Priya Sarukkai Chabria is remarkable both as poet and novelist and her twin aspects are clearly evident in Generation 14, for while the book is, on the one hand, a piece of ambitious and inventive science-fiction about cloning and control, it is, also, most importantly, concerned with the poetry of belonging, selfhood and commitment. The scenes are vividly visualised and carried through at a convincing pace. Chabria depicts a violent world out of which revolutionary forces emerge out of history to round out a new world that is an echo of the lost, awakening the new to a deeper, more humane consciousness. “ – George Szitres, winner of the T S Eliot Memorial Poetry Prize.

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